1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to wireless communications and, more particularly, to integrated circuit radio front end circuitry.
2. Related Art
Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system is constructed, and hence operates, in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards, including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS), and/or variations thereof.
Depending on the type of wireless communication system, a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone, two-way radio, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), laptop computer, home entertainment equipment, etc., communicates directly or indirectly with other wireless communication devices. For direct communications (also known as point-to-point communications), the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of a plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system) and communicate over that channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services) and/or an associated access point (e.g., for an in-home or in-building wireless network) via an assigned channel. To complete a communication connection between the wireless communication devices, the associated base stations and/or associated access points communicate with each other directly, via a system controller, via a public switched telephone network (PSTN), via the Internet, and/or via some other wide area network.
Each wireless communication device includes a built-in radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) or is coupled to an associated radio transceiver (e.g., a station for in-home and/or in-building wireless communication networks, RF modem, etc.). As is known, the transmitter includes a data modulation stage, one or more intermediate frequency stages, and a power amplifier stage. The data modulation stage converts raw data into baseband signals in accordance with the particular wireless communication standard. The one or more intermediate frequency stages mix the baseband signals with one or more local oscillations to produce RF signals. The power amplifier stage amplifies the RF signals prior to transmission via an antenna.
Typically, the data modulation stage is implemented on a baseband processor chip, while the intermediate frequency (IF) stages and power amplifier stage are implemented on a separate radio processor chip. Historically, radio integrated circuits have been designed using bipolar circuitry, allowing for large signal swings and linear transmitter component behavior. Therefore, many legacy baseband processors employ analog interfaces that communicate analog signals to and from the radio processor.
Typically, a radio front end processor includes digital to analog converters that it uses to convert an outgoing signal received from a baseband processor to an analog signal prior to performing filtering, upconversion and amplification for transmission from an antenna. Such designs are known and have been successfully used for many years. New design requirements, however, are making it difficult to employ old and known techniques. For example, new high throughput wireless local area network access points desirably must transmit data at very high rates. To support transmission of high data rate signals, the baseband processor is required to employ high sample rates and to conduct a large amount of data over a high speed serial digital bus. For example, to support desired high throughput rates for a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) radio, it may be necessary to transmit data at a 12 Gigabit/second data rate.
From a radio front end integrated circuit's perspective, receiving, processing, and transmitting such high data rate serial data may be problematic. What is needed, therefore, is a circuit and method for supporting high throughput communications and more specifically, an interface between a baseband/MAC integrated circuit and a radio front end integrated circuit that supports high throughput communications.